'It’s pretty amazing how much people love the music thing out here,' says 805 artist

Our own local 805 rock star/virtuoso/auteur, Jonathan McEuen, will complete his latest chapter of the Ventura shuffle with his Saturday night performance at the Ojai Underground. McEuen is familiar to local music fans since he’s been around for a long time and played with everyone from Jimmy Adams, “Fiddlin’ Phil“ Salazar to the Jonathan Raffetto Band.

For this one, however, McEuen and his guitar will be going solo, making it simple to pay the band when it’s over. Rest assured he won’t run out of songs. Or friends. Nicola Winokur is due to play a few songs. She’s the daughter of Todd Winokur, who created Café Voltaire in Ventura back in the ’90s – one of the venues that locals whine about missing the most, and where McEuen used to play all the time.

McEuen has music in him down to the molecular level. His brother, Nathan, has his own career in music. Their father is John McEuen of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fame. McEuen grew up surrounded my music and also father’s famous friends such as Levon Helm, Dolly Parton, Steve Martin, Vince Gill – pretty much a who’s who list. According to the artist, here’s what’s what.

It’s been nearly a decade since we talked. The topics then were your cousin Jaime Hanna, Ray Bradbury and your new album, “Believe.”

I remember.

So where have you been? Where have I been? What’d I miss?

These last five or 10 years have been a weird time for a lot of people. Strange days.

Especially the last two, but you’re still here.

Well, I’m still in Ventura County doing the Ventura shuffle, you know, holding up the musical artist flag. It’s a worthwhile thing.

This could be an hour answer, but you’ve seen things change – what’s your take on the local music scene?

One of the cool things about Ventura – if you stay here long enough – when Dwight (Yoakam) comes to town, you go and you hang and blow up the town for a night and get together with the boys in the band and go to Dargan’s. You get to enjoy this town for what it’s worth…musically.

Too many people mistakenly assume that you have to go to Santa Barbara for that …

Right. You can do that here. There’s been times when it’s been better but you’ve got to keep doing something, you know, to keep things going. It’s pretty amazing how much people love the music thing out here, man. People have been showing up at the Underground. It’s been pretty full.

Tell me about those Underground shows. This is the last one, right?

Yeah, it’s the last one of four, but I might do a bi-monthly residency thing – maybe like a Voltaire thing up there. There’s actually two venues – one is a jazz club and the other is like a listening room. Speaking of Voltaire, Todd’s daughter is playing.

Todd’s daughter?

Yeah, Nicola (Winokur), and she’s good. She just sorta showed up in my life about a month ago. I didn’t really know that she sang. She’ll be sitting in on this next one, doing a few numbers, actually. She’s amazing. It’s scary how good she is.

Yeah, Café Voltaire – one of Ventura’s classic venues and a frequent new low, but in a good way. OK, so you’ve been everywhere and could probably live anywhere, so why here in the 805?

Well, I met a girl here in 1996. Her name is Ksenia, and she likes the climate here. It’s a very temperate climate.

Ksenia is very wise. In Zone 24, there’s no frost and you can grow just about anything, and your clothing options are the usual: T-shirt or sweatshirt?

And that’s why we’re here. You can live outside all year long and not freeze; but as far as the arts and music thing, sometimes it can be a bit taxing to try to do that at the level you do it in Nashville, for example; but we’ve got an opportunity to take it where we all know it can go. I think it’s gonna happen again where you’ll see like a little resurgence where it’s starting to happen – where people are starting to get a good reputation for their music…stuff like that.

So who’s in your band for this Ojai gig?

You know, it’s just been solo, these last four, but the last few times, I’ve somebody sit in – Tommy Quayle did the last couple. I produced Tom’s record, but he probably won’t be playing this last one but we are playing McCabe’s in January. He’s always wanted to play there.

Over the years, you’ve met everybody that’s anybody, so that’s got to be a good thing, yes?

It doesn’t mean you have to work less. It doesn’t mean you get it for free. It doesn’t mean you get the royal treatment. If you can’t deliver in certain situations where you’re required to do so, you don’t get to keep doing it. So you have to actually work and practice and rehearse and then do it. I would say I’ve actually had to put in a few extra overtime hours, granted that dad is in the business along with his brother, so it doesn’t mean we have to work less; in fact, we have to work harder, and maybe because there’s so many of us, we tend to support each other.

As a working musician, how often do you practice?

Enough. If you have done 30,000 hours, you can go into the studio or hit the stage at any point and still do a good show. But it’s because of the cellular memory from practicing so much and you’ve done it so much, and it becomes a thing that you get to do. And it’s really cool when it becomes this thing that you get to do.

It’s a gift.

Yeah, it’s a gift, and if you don’t share it when you have it…it’s like a blasphemy.
When you look back and think, “Hey, dad, thanks for introducing me to so-and-so.”

Who would that so-and-so be?

It’s funny you should ask that because my father and his brother helped him and he helped them. Steve Martin was part of the family for about 20 years. My Uncle Bill managed him and produced his album and my dad was like, his banjo teacher. Now, I’ve never asked Steve Martin for anything, even though I’m named after him. My middle name is Martin and when I was introduced to him when I was 12-years-old, I was introduced as “the one that is named after you,” and he went, “Oh, that’s nice…“ It didn’t help. It didn’t make him like me more. Then 10 years later, I met him in Aspen, and we talked about his art collection for about an hour and he came to my show and he loved it. He’s a very smart, brilliant, art guy, who went from music to film which isn’t that hard to do, but it’s really hard to go the other way.

Absolutely. How many actors have those vanity bands that suck?

Jeff Bridges did OK. There’s a couple of them. So one of the benefits of being John McEuen’s son is that his best pal, Steve Martin, will take a meeting with you if you can pique his interest enough to say, “Yes.” So there’s a lot of stuff going on and every time I talk to you.

How many songs do you know? I can’t imagine you running out of material.

Thousands. A thousand that sound like mine but are originals and another thousand that are covers.

What’s next?

We took our ’53 Greyhound bus and totally rebuilt it. It’s a broadcasting studio, café, house concert, pop-up venue thing. And that’s kind of what we’re going to do next year. We’re gonna hit the road and go out there and spread the love.

Bill Locey’s picks

If I had a faster car, a richer girlfriend or even one with a job, here’s where I’ll be lurking in the back this week:Shawn Jones at Relm in Camarillo (Dec. 21)Acoustic DNA at Winchesters in Ventura (Dec. 21)Maclovia at Deer Lodge in Meiners Oaks (Dec. 21)Teresa Russell at the Shores in Oxnard (Dec. 22)Fishbone at Discovery Ventura (Dec. 22)Medicine Hat, Hubcap Stealers, Brother Earl at Bombay in Ventura (Dec. 22)Uptown Brothers at Grapes & Hops in Ventura (Dec. 22)Cliff Beach Band at Deer Lodge (Dec. 22)Robert Thomas Band at Cold Spring Tavern in Santa Barbara (Dec. 22)The Swillys at Winchesters (Dec. 23)Natalie Gelman at Topa Mountain Winery in Ojai (Dec. 23)Cadillac Angels at Cold Spring Tavern (Dec. 23)Teresa Russell & Stephen Geyer at Lookout in Oxnard (Dec. 25)Frank Barajas at Pirates in Oxnard (Dec. 26)Rugburn at Sans Souci in Ventura (Dec. 27)Gypsy Blues at Oak & Main in Ventura (Dec. 27)Rose Valley Thorns at the Vine in Ojai (Dec. 27)